A Brief History of Time (1991)

﻿Film review by David Sterritt for the March 2014 Blu-ray release of A Brief History of Time by The Criterion Collection

﻿Knotty questions can often be posed in simple ways. The first words we hear in A Brief History of Time, adapted by Errol Morris from the book by physicist Stephen Hawking, present such a question: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Additional questions follow, more imposing but equally to the point: “Did the universe have a beginning, and if so, what happened before then? Where did the universe come from, and where is it going?” Those are funda­men­tal con­cerns of Hawking’s book, but don’t expect Morris’s film to be a thorny discourse on theoretical cosmology. As we hear those initial words, we see—what else?—a chicken, popping mischie­vously into view against a backdrop of the star-filled heavens. It’s a perfect prologue to one of the wittiest, most absorbing science movies ever made.